


The Child Sees Ghosts

by StripedScribe



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Dead People, Ghosts, How Do I Tag, Nightmares, Sleep, Whump, mentions of injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:22:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23707558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StripedScribe/pseuds/StripedScribe
Summary: Even in his sleep, they don't leave. Chasing his thoughts, his mind, his soul. An endless torment, another price to pay for getting sober.
Kudos: 52





	The Child Sees Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> Started writing this ages ago, found it, was going to continue but it works as a short one-shot. So here you go, have a present.
> 
> For all us whump goblins (It could be whumpier, must improve in future)

He screamed, a horde of ghosts bearing down on him, their faces contorted in their own shrieks. The sound was endless, piercing through his thoughts, leaving him only with space for panic. A numb echo of fear, he couldn’t remember where he was, what he’d been doing. Only that the dead surrounded him, and he couldn’t move. Paralysed, terrors of the night keeping him in place. Some of them, their faces, unrecognisable from who they once could have been, torn in agony and injury. Blaming him for their deaths, begging him to be able to save them, to bring them back to life.

As he tried to rip his feet from where they were seemingly glued to the ground, the absence of Ben made him stop. “Ben? Ben! Where are you? We gotta go, I don’ t know what’s happening but could really do with a hand here. Or a couple of tentacles.” He persisted with his struggles, noticing the spirits still getting closer, as he finally freed himself and began to run into the empty darkness.

It all looked the same, blackness below his feet, and all around. Whichever direction he ran in, the ghosts always seemed just behind, screeching and crying out his name. But nowhere was his ghostly brother, no sign of the ever present Ben, or Dave. A never-ending sea of emptiness, with the screeching of abandoned souls following him.

“I’d really love an explanation of what the fuck is happening right here. Anyone? No, just screaming my name? I mean, I’m honoured you love me so much, but please stop with the chasing. I’m not interested loves.” Still the blackness surrounded him, an emptiness even as he ran, a dark blanket on his thoughts and memories.

“I’m honestly not in the right shoes for running here girls.” His mind drew a blank, trying to remember what he was wearing, and as he looked down he continued to just see darkness where his feet should have been, as his mind sputtered to fill in something which should have been there.

“Oh. Again? Really?” Stopping still, he simply stood his ground, feeling his heart beat quicker as the ghosts rushed him, to stand mere inches from his face, their echoing screams blotting out his words. They surrounded him, each imploring him to listen to their story, to offer salvation. “C’mon Klaus wake up from this terror. You’ve solved it, now get out of it.” He tried to calm himself, taking deep breaths, flinching every time he closed his eyes.

The ghosts wavered, each one speaking, their voices overlapping.

"Killed me, murderer.” “I’m innocent, I swear.”  
“Save us Klaus.” “She was young.” “-didn’t deserve this.”  
“Klaus.” “Help me.” “Please Klaus.”  
“Please.” “Why won’t you help me.” “Klaus.”  
”Klaus.” “You’re just like him.” “Selfish.”

“Ben? Dave? Loves if you can hear me out there do me a favour and wake me up? I’m stuck again.”

He, or at least his body, he hoped must be at the Academy. Hopefully. Screaming its little socks off, if the feel of his throat was anything to go by. They really needed to rip out that soundproofing Reginald covered his room in. Ben was usually pretty on it for the waking him up, but if he didn’t have enough energy to manifest then they’d be in trouble. Klaus had never cracked the ability to wake himself up from a night terror. Not that they were just night terrors. More a special brand of night terror crossed sleep paralysis crossed child can see ghosts. All the usual techniques were thrown out of the window, in favour of just hoping someone would shake him out of it.

Dearest Reginald when they first started had gone down the road of night terrors, in don’t wake the child, and they won’t remember it in the morning. But the ghosts had followed him out of his dreams, and sat around his bed waiting for him to fall asleep again, waiting to chase him over and over again.

So then they treated it as severe sleep paralysis, the whole get a routine, don’t do anything just before you go to sleep, eat properly. The ghosts still followed him. It wasn’t like they were allowed to go to a normal doctor, to find anyone who might know what was happening. Simply the skills of Reginald, Pogo and Grace, to keep the ghost child just this side of normal.

Klaus fixed it in the end. Along with all the ghosts, by turning to drugs. By flooding himself with a blanket of booze and medicine, where he could barely think straight, let alone allow any ghosts in.

It was only when he got sober that they returned. Trapping him in nightmares he didn’t know how to wake up from, in terrors so convincing he could run and scream for hours, until something seemed not quite right. Until he could calm down and speak to the ghosts, and realise they didn’t mean to harm him.

He probably ought to tell the others though, get them to take out the soundproofing so they could actually hear him and hopefully wake him up.

That’s if they’d want to. Wasn’t fair to ask them to have that burden. But Ben and Dave couldn’t always wake him. They couldn’t appear in the terrors, or if they did it was some warped version, an evil mockery of his family. And sometimes they weren’t strong enough to wake him, weren’t able to become corporeal to shake him back to the living. Those were the bad ones, when he’d been trapped in there too long to have enough energy for them to borrow. Those he escaped on his own, eventually, having had spoken to all the ghosts who wanted his attention, and helped them to resolve whatever problems they had. He couldn’t remember signing up to be a counsellor for the other side, not that he minded it, really, he’d become used to talking to them, ignoring their injuries. It was more the time, they chose the most awkward times, or would keep him there for hours so he missed appointments or dates. The worst one so far reached about 30 hours, when he pulled himself out his voice was gone, and his family hadn’t even noticed he’d been in his room the whole time. Ben and Dave had been rooted to his side, worried sick, their forms pale with lack of energy.

Ben was right. They definitely needed to get some way of alerting the others when he got stuck.

“Wonderful. Family meeting once I get out of this. Benny, Davey boy, any luck yet, I’m kinda bored and Dorothy here, it was Dorothy right? Yeah? Yeah, Dorothy here is first on my list if we’re going to have to do this the long way.”

“Okay then lovey, what’s the matter? I know, I don’t mind talking to you all really, it’s more the trapping me in here that’s the problem. I’m not the biggest fan of being trapped in the darkness.”

As though in response, the void lightened, settling on a muted grey. “Oh, is that you? Thank you dear, much nicer. And next time you pull me in here, shall we just start with the orderly queue? And maybe a few less of you, let me have a chance to save my voice. Maybe set times or something? I know you hate it when I get pulled out halfway through a session.”

“Tell me all about it Dorothy, how can I help you.”

He listened, to Dorothy’s story on her murder, and helped her to find peace and move on, knowing that her murderer had been punished, sentenced to life in prison.

To Helen, who had died in childbirth, and couldn’t find her daughter, in either world. Edith had become a lost soul for a few years, and her child grew up to be her son, she didn’t recognise him to start off with, but was so proud. She could pass on happier now, if she chose, or follow and watch her family grow up. Ghosts, spirits, were usually happy to help each other, to travel the world in search of a lost family member, alive or dead.

Those who’d settled, who’d resolved their problems but chosen to stay as spirits, tried to act as guides, helping the newly departed work out their next steps. But they all flocked to Klaus, believing him to be better, to be more helpful. He felt he just knew the right questions to ask, or which of the guides would be more useful to a particular soul.

“Edward, you should have been first! I was pulled mid conversation last time, how are you? Any luck with your boy?”

“Found ‘im.” A ghost with no signs of injury stepped up to talk to Klaus, his hands wringing nervously.

“Oh, well done Edward! I’m happy for you.”

From behind Edward, a young boy stepped around, Klaus hiding his shock as he took in the injuries, not expecting the man’s son to be with him. “Oh sweetie, bless you.” Car accident, he’d guess. Poor kid. “What do you plan to do now?”

“Think it’s best if we go on, find some peace elsewhere. Isaac deserves happiness now.”

“You both do, look after yourselves now.”

The two left, the broken child looking up at his father as they walked away, to wherever they would end up. To see God, or to simply just find peace.

“Okay, I’m just stretching my legs a second. I’ll be back, hang on.” He walked away from the group of spirits, a long line of stories waiting to be heard. “Come on Hargreeves, someone, help.” Not for the first time, he cursed his powers, his skills, hating the feeling of being trapped. Wondered how long it had been, how long he’d been stuck in their space, dragged to a stage between life and death.

He’d become used to the ghosts, no longer scared of them for the most part, when he remembered. Those moments when he first ‘woke up’ he could barely remember who he was, filled with pure fear, trapped in a trance. Once he realised it wasn’t real he could calm down, and each time he’d start by begging for them to release him. But they only would once all their stories had been told, unless someone from the living world released him. None of which knew this happened. Family meeting, urgently needed. They must be overdue one anyway. Anyway, ghosts, he took a deep breath, and returned to his position, quickly biting back tears as a young girl ran up to him, trying to give him a hug.

“Hey sweetheart, what’s your-”

“-up Klaus! Klaus!” Screaming, shouting. He squinted as the world came back to reality, to Five shaking him. “What the hell is going on? What did you take?”

“Nothing.” Voice hoarse, barely there, he tried to answer, sitting up and dragging his duvet with him. “Painfully sober. Think-” His voice broke, falling away. Coughing, he tried to carry on. “Family meeting, don’t let me sleep.” His eyes felt heavy again, all he wanted to do was close them, slip back to sleep, even if that meant being dragged back there. No, he couldn’t, not yet. Five left the room, shouting outside in the corridor, for someone to come. “Ben, Dave, how long?”

“Not record breaking, 27 hours.” Ben answered, fretting as he continued to pace. From the grim determination on his face, Klaus would have guessed he’d been doing that for a while, and that if he was corporeal there would be a track worn in the floor.

“You get Five?”

“Managed to knock your door open as he passed, you’ve been screaming the whole time but either you shut the door when you went to sleep, or something else did.” Dave came to sit closer on the bed, moving as though to lean against Klaus, but not quite, knowing he’d fall through. “We were getting too weak to do anything else.”

“Fuck. I can’t keep doing this like this, there’s so many of them that need help. That’s what they want.” Scrubbing at his face, he winced at the cracks in his voice, standing up and gathering blankets around himself as a cape.

“Save your voice Klaus, explain to all of us at the same time.”

”I need, a drink.” He wobbled as he headed towards the door, an arm reaching out to steady himself against the doorframe. Both Ben and Dave rushed to his side, arms stretched in vain as they simply passed through him.

“Cup of tea Klaus, or some coffee, we’re not letting this send you back. Get some food in you too.”

“See if Grace will make you some proper hot chocolate, if Diego hasn’t had it all yet.” Klaus carried on walking slowly, hand pressed against the wall as he made his way down the corridor. As he reached the stairs, he seemed to falter, stopping still.

“Now I remember why I don’t leave my room. Stairs. Fuck.”

“Wait Klaus, be careful! Someone should come soon, surely, can help you down.”

“I’m not some damsel in distress. I’ve got this.” Clutching onto the banister, he inched down a step, arm trembling. Hopelessly the two ghosts watched, trying to help, wanting to catch him should he fall. As he reached halfway, he simply sank to the ground, chest heaving with effort. “Just taking a rest, I’m all good.” His voice broke away, even as he tried to carry on talking. He coughed, trying to get something back. Mouthing the word ‘fuck’ he tried to stand again, getting down one step before faltering again.

“Klaus?! What happened, are you okay?” A thundering of footsteps preceded Diego’s arrival, crouching to sit at Klaus’ side. “Did you take something?”

Only able to shake his head, Klaus mouthed ‘no’ pointing at his throat, before putting his hand up as though for a high 5. “Five? Yeah he got me, didn’t say anything besides a family meeting now. Is this why?”

Nodding, Klaus tried to stand up again, tried to pull himself up again. “Shit Klaus, you’re shaking, what happened?” Diego pulled him up, looping an arm around his shoulder and bearing his weight.

“Tell - later.”

“Okay, okay, let’s get you downstairs, get you something to drink, try and get you your voice back.”


End file.
